Month: January 2017

What a week! I’ve been away with work for most of it. Usually I can’t stand travelling for work, and well, this wasn’t an exception – a week away for a super intense workshop that I had spent the last month preparing for. Lots of senior managers and a very important issue to resolve. I am happy to say it was a complete success with many attendees announcing it the best hothouse event they had ever been to. Score!

I ended up out with my work colleagues every night and definitely had a fair bit too much to drink each night – which was absolutely needed after the time i spent preparing to get everything ready for the event. I swear, it was more stressful than planning my wedding!

I had far too many of these – felt like I was a teenager again!

Got right on the selfies – was teaching my team all about how to take a selfie! God even with snapchat filters i still look exhausted in that pic!

The journey home wasn’t great, we got stuck outside London behind a broken down train and ended up running about half an hour late. This meant we missed our connecting train back home and ended up only getting back into Dundee at 11:45pm. Yuk. After going into a busy week already completely shattered, this was not good!

Having only seen Riley briefly for a morning drop off at nursery on Monday I was determined to make the most of the weekend with him.

However, you know what they say about plans….

Saturday was a dull and wet day, which later turned to snow. I’d promised Riley we’d bake cakes so needed to pop out to Tesco’s to get the basic ingredients. It had just started to snow at this point so we got dressed in warm jackets, Riley had his welly boots on so thanks to Peppa bloody Pig, decided it was best to jump in puddles. All was going well with a few soakings from the child until he found a gigantic puddle, the look of excitement on his face as i shouted at him to not even think about it…and what did he do? Ran to jump in it. Yup. Except the run turned into a tumble and he went flying head first into said massive puddle. Queue the tears. Back off home we went with a screaming child absolutely dripping wet.

On Sunday we actually got to make those cakes. I was quite enjoying making them until Riley sneezed into the bowl of cake mixture. Lovely. Although I won’t lie, I did have a cupcake afterwards. The gross things mothers do sometimes!

One of these days it would be awesome to actually have a successful weekend!

This week has been a tough one. I’ve been so busy with work, tonight is the first night I’ve been able to sit down and relax. All week I’ve been working 8:30am till 11:30pm. I’ve already broken my first goal to improve my work life balance in the second week of the year. That being send I am hoping this is a temporary thing. I am preparing for a big workshop of which I seem to be taking the reins of which will see lots of people from team member to director level attend and its up to me to make it a success to ensure their buy in. This is something I do not want to get wrong! So much so its seen me working these crazy hours and I feel like I’ve neglected being a parent.

Friday morning I felt really bad about having to work for the whole day. It had snowed overnight and when Riley saw the blanket of white outside he was very excited. It’s been the first time we have had proper snow that he would have been able to play out in. I saw a post from the nursery on facebook mentioning that they wouldn’t be able to go out in the snow because of the wind so there went the mum guilt big time! Not only could I not take him out, but neither could the nursery. I snapped a picture of him in the dark outside the nursery in the snow but spent most of the day being super jealous of all my friends posts on facebook who were outside in the daylight playing with their little ones in the snow.

Thankfully today I’ve been able to spend more time with Riley than just half an hour in the morning and an hour at night. We decided to head out to town; Kev needed something to wear for his night out (I swear he is worse than me and needs a new outfit every time he goes out!) and we were going to try and get some lunch. We made it into the first shop after our icy walk into town and Riley started kicking off. He started playing up by running away from me behind the clothes racks. He has an awful habit just now of running away and hiding which just leaves me in a panic that I’ve lost my child! Well I wasn’t putting up with it today and grabbed his arm and marched him out of the shop. Clearly not one of the best ideas as the realisation he was being removed from the endless rows of hiding places resulted in a tantrum which escalated quickly as he started trying to hit me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so embarrassed before by him out in public. We had to forgo Kev’s clothes shopping and tried to make it out of the shopping centre whilst trying to calm him down.

There went our day of spending family time together. I was so mad! When we got home he was sent to his room to calm down. He came back through to see us when he calmed down and said sorry in that cute little voice that only kids can give you when they are trying to make it up to you. He came in for a cuddle and it was almost as if nothing ever happened!

It’s funny how kids can do that to you – send you to the brink of madness and flash a cheeky smile at you and cuddle into you to make you forget it all.

Ah the beginning of a brand new year, an empty book just waiting to capture all the new memories. My plan is to use this blog this year to capture our family moments. Goodbye 2016 hello 2017! A lot of people think 2016 has been a terrible year, yes it has had its moments, in amongst sadly losing a lot of inspirational famous faces, controversial voting outcomes (hello Brexit and Trump!) and lots of political upheaval but overall 2016 hasn’t been too bad to my family and I. It’s been an adventurous year with a number of travels, a stressful year with job changes and new shifts for Kev to work round – but generally it has evened out with plenty of good too. I had to have a good think about the events of year and what the highlights were and for this reason I want to ensure that I keep this blog up to date with our adventures for the year so I have something to reflect back on as we get to this time next year!

January

We took our first family holiday! This was also our honeymoon, and I was super excited! Florida was not somewhere I saw myself wanting to go on my honeymoon – I always envisioned lying on a hammock on the deck of a lovely water villa on a secluded island in dreamy Maldives. Not themeparks and a giant mouse. When it came to deciding what to do I just couldn’t leave Riley for that long and I am glad this was the choice we made as I got to watch Riley experience the magic of Disney for the first time! He might have been suffering greatly with jetlag and throwing tantrums constantly but it will be a highlight of 2016 for me for sure!

February

The highlight of this month was my sister-in-laws wedding. We travelled down to Manchester on the train, which was a bit of a disaster. The previous week poor weather had brought down a bridge and we were diverted onto another line which added an additional hour and half onto the journey. The ceremony was at the Lowry and what a lovely venue it was indeed. It was a beautiful, if not damp and windy day and Riley behaved himself for the most part! He fell asleep after some dancing and that gave me and Kev a bit of time to enjoy the night. I enjoyed it a bit too much and had a wee bit too much to drink, as did Kev whose two left feet squished my foot and left it so swollen and bruised I had to go to A&E as I couldn’t walk!

March

This month was a quiet month, I took this opportunity to visit my family back home in Troon. It’s a wee coastal town on the west coast of Scotland and is two hours away from Dundee. It means I don’t get to visit very often we visited my mum and dad who live 2 hours away from us. I don’t get to visit too often but we do try at least once every few months. Riley had fun visiting again, he does love to see his Gran and Grandad, but most of all loves to see his Auntie Karen. She is a doting aunt that absalutley adores her nephew and makes so much time for him.

April

Riley turned three this month! This was scary in itself as I will never get over how quickly time flies when you have a child. I probably say this every birthday!

This month also saw we pass an interview and assessment centre and achieve my career ambition at 26 years old by landing a promotion for my dream job! Let me tell you I was a bag of nerves in that assessment centre. I had to pass to achieve a licesnce to practice my job role at the promoted level. I had previously sat one a few years ago for the previous level I was at and aced it, but got myself into a tizz over this one! When I finished I had a bubble on the train home as I had convinced myself I had failed. I spent a tortured week waiting for the results and have never been more shocked than finding out not only did I pass, but I had achieved an accelerated pass which means I did waaaay better than I ever imagined!

May

Riley caught chicken pox! He came home from nursery on a Thursday and the girls informed me that there had been a case of the dreaded pox. This had me thinking I had at least a week or two before Riley came down with it, so I cancelled my catch up at softplay with mummy friends in Glasgow and headed through to my mum and dads instead. Unfortunately those little red spots started popping up on his tummy, face and arms and he was covered by Sunday!

We were very lucky that despite him having a fair few spots he was pretty good with them and didn’t itch.

June

June saw the start of the better weather and by the end of the month Riley even made it out in a pair of shorts! Riley had his first sports day this month and he won every race! He is such a competitive child it is hilarious! After every race he came sprinting over to us shouting “I won! I won mummy!” I even got persuaded into taking part in the mum’s race. I was winning too until my blooming shoe came flying off and dropped me down to second place!

July

The start of the Pokémon craze! I partook for a week or two, before I realised how annoying Pokémon hunters were becoming in my street. We had three pokestops within 20 steps of each other and it caused traffic jams, lots of noise and litter. I soon began to dislike the damn things despite loving Pikachu when I was a kid myself.

This month we kicked off the hunt for “Oor Wullies.” Dundee is known for being the home of the Broons, oor Wullie and the Beano. In order to raise money for a children’s charity for the local hospital 66 Ooor Wullie statues were painted by lots of different people, groups and organisations and distributed throughout the city on a “Bucket trail.” This was for the duration of the summer and took you to all parts of Dundee city that you might never have explored otherwise! This month we found 33 of them. Here is good old Wullie dressed up like Harry Potter.

August

We continued the hunt for the “Oor Wullies before they were to vanish at the end of the month. We found the last of them. My favourite this month was up the top of Law Hill. You can see the whole city from here. Riley even spotted our flat and waved to Daddy, who in all honesty was likely to still be out for the count in his kip!

September

We jetted off for our second holiday of the year. Costa Del Sol, a place I’d never been before and probably wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t of found such a bargain and a genuinely great looking family resort. We really enjoyed our time here. Riley had a blast about the pool and even still he continues to ask to go back on the pool holiday!

October

This month saw the of the sickness which was to last almost two months in our house. Countless days off nursery and work, chest infections, sickness bugs, whooping cough and another round of chest infections to top it all off.

November

Sick month yet again! Despite this we still kept trying to keep spirts high and went out to watch the fireworks (Riley was scared two mins in and we had to walk home again!) do some baking, Kev caught whooping cough, Riley came out in strange rashes and began coughing so much he was sick. It was another fun month. Can you read sarcasm in a blog?! We topped it off with putting up a mini Christmas tree with all of Riley’s (really mine!) Disney decorations.

December

This was a busy month as Decembers generally tend to be! Myself, Riley and my two sisters visited Disney in Paris for 5 days. It was an amazing trip all the better with getting to travel with my sisters!

Kev and I celebreated our first wedding anniversary with a pub lunch and a half day off work!I took no photos for the day for some reason (maybe something to do with it being just a pub lunch!) so here is a wedding picture instead!

With 2016 wrapped up nicely, I am looking forward to an exciting 2017. We are one week in already and rather than make resolutions, I’ve set myself some goals for the year, one of which being the update of this blog to ensure all my family memories are captured in one place.

Riley was tucked up in bed, not a creature was stirring – not even a mouse…until 3am when Riley’s cough worsened again and I had to get up to see to him. I prayed he wouldn’t notice the santa sack in the corner of his room as I settled him back to sleep and scurried back to the warmth of my bed.

Crisis averted and I didn’t hear from him until 7 when he was struggling into our room dragging that brimming sack of presents behind him!

“Mummy, look what santa left me!” he announced with the excitement ringing in his little voice! I was so excited about how excited he was! This year he was REALLY into Christmas. I mean really into it! Previous years he has still just been a wee bit too small to really know what was happening. Last year was good but this year the excitement leading upto it was just amazing!

Whilst that buzz of how excited I used to be as a kid is clearly never going to come back, it is lovely to be able to experience it all from my sons innocent eyes. The magic of santa, of sleighs with bells

We had an extra 15 mins in bed letting him open some of his presents leaving a wake of wrapping paper everywhere! When I decided to opt for a sack rather than a stocking this was definitely one of the benefits I thought of! Living in a rented flat, not having any real surfaces to hang a stocking from it seemed like the only option anyway! We used to use pillow cases as kids too as we never had anywhere for stocking to hang in our house either so I guess it’s a bit of a family tradition!

Riley was super excited as we got into the living room – he saw Santa had eaten his cookie and drunk his milk and that Rudolph had eaten his carrot! I love how exciting that is to a kid! I still remember how amazed I was as a young child at how santa could eat and drink so much on Christmas eve!

Overall there was about 20 mins dedicated to present opening. Riley is one of those kids who opens his present and then wants to get the toy out immediately to play with it. Total opposite from me, I like to rip everything open and then go back to it all afterwards! So I had to encourage him to continue to open more and that we would play with all his new toys once he knew what he had to play with.

We spent most of the morning setting up Riley’s new presents and letting him play with them – honestly I do believe these toy manufacturers really love giving parents three different types of tie and clip to attach toys to the box.

Dinner was brilliant; in fact, Kevin even said “It’s the best meal you have cooked in 5 years!” Really not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not…has my food been that bad for 5 years?! But it was a good meal that I thoroughly enjoyed. Riley of course, didn’t touch a thing…no change there then.

For the rest of the Christmas break Riley and I drove through to my mum and dads to spend some time with them, where we were all spoilt again!

Here are some of my favourite pictures from the festive season. I hope everyone had a lovely time!

Nice wee family selfie

Me and Riley in our christmas jammies

Leaving cookies and milk for Santa and carrot for Rudolph – he was super excited about that this year